A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Jax/Savannah 2-0 ... Alberto & Beryl?

What are the odds?

I keep hearing the song "How Do You Like Me Now?" playing in my head here while watching the radar loops. Beryl's rain is moving through the exact same places as Alberto's tropical moisture did. Can't imagine what will happen next at this point. And, there will be a lot of "nexts" this Hurricane Season.

The moisture down under Cuba that brought us Beryl is still bubbling away and can possibly bring us a third early season system if it develops. Not sure it will, but it's down there and looking even better than Beryl did a few days back.

As for me, I'm looking south and north and all about wondering on how the tropical pundits could be so off on this Hurricane Season.

This is one of the problems with early season predictions, a lot like those Sports Illustrated Covers which show a player who didn't quite live up to his potential or went down in the 2nd game of the season and though he got a lot of publicity in the pre-season the expectations were way off.

We forecast, which means we are trying to take a stab at what we think will happen. Problem is tropical storms and bunches of them come in all sizes and shapes like babies in the same family. One year we get long coastal cruisers, one year we get Cape Verde Waves, one year we get storms that form close in... like this year .... and we will get a few long cruisers and loop de doop storms this year. We'll see... time will telleth but come on.... it's a warm, hot, steamy, muggy May and don't think this will change going into June. In years like this we often get strong July Hurricanes, because July feels like September in years such as this when we are climatologically weeks if not a month ahead of where we should be this time of year.

In New York the trees were budding weeks ahead of schedule, roses cover lawns in April almost two months ahead of when they usually blush forth in late May or early June. In the Carolinas the pollen burst early, the Dogwood festival was without dogwoods and it was July in May. In Miami,, during the holiday of Shavous which usually ushers in the rainy season, we baked in extremely hot weather as winds circulating around a tropical system to the north brought us southwesterly hot winds and very little rain. It was one of the hottest, steamiest holidays I can remember... barely a breeze on the canal, hot airless days that my Grandma Mary taught me were a prelude to tropical trouble. Got to trust my Grandma Mary, there was something about her... she knew from years of living in the deep tropics (Tampa & Miami) when were were about to go into the hurricane season and she was right.

This is it. This is the start of things to come... tropically speaking...

What kind of tropical storms and hurricanes we will get... can't say but they will come and it seems they will be coming in odd places. Will this be Tampa's year? Maybe... possibly.

As for me, sitting in the backyard barefoot and watching the birds and the butterflies and the heavy crop of mangoes swinging on their thick rope like stems and enjoying the breeze from the ceiling fan we have out here. Love it... love it so much.

Bright orange butterflies twisting around each other in some natural dance that has a meaning only they understand. Yesterday, striped yellow and black ones were dancing all around me as I walked to to Temple. I just stood there, remembering the month or two before Wilma when we had a similar set up and the yard was flooded with bright yellow butterflies. Something similar.

As for the Jax/Sav area... not much damage and a lot of wave watchers at the beach. Imagine they will load up on hurricane supplies this year... and the song keeps playing in my head "How do you like me now?"

Remember, this storm was 5 mph less than a Hurricane..that's got to be a wake up call for any city that thinks they are untouchable tropically and are "safe" as this year will be a year to remember I believe with regard to odd storms...

Keep watching, stock up on supplies, never think that the worst can't happen and hope that the storms go somewhere else... always be prepared, now is the time. Alberto and Beryl were wake up calls, don't keep hitting the snooze button guys....

Besos Bobbi
Ps...got to love a holiday that includes eating ice cream sandwiches!